SIXTEEN lads of Barrowford Celtic Boys Club put on their track suit tops and best smiles to receive a cash donation, for a new strip.

The lads belonged to the club's football team and their manager, D Jones, left, was presented with a cheque from Smith and Nephew in 1979.

Handing it over at the company's Brierfield Mills, is Mr A Taylor, executive director of the medical division.

It's nearly 40 years since the Telegraph photographer got the young footballers to line up on the staircase, but maybe you recognise a friend or someone from your family.

The massive Brierfield Mills, the town's first steam powered cotton mill, has stood sentinel on the banks of the Leeds Liverpool canal since 1838, when it was built for Henry Tunstill and Sons.

Over the next four decades it expanded dramatically, until it covered an area of some 380,000 square feet.

Smith and Nephew Textiles, which grew from the roots of a dispensing chemist business, created by T J Smith in the mid 19th century, who was later joined by his nephew, started producing surgical bandages there in 1957, modernising the plant three years later.

It also had a second large mill in North Valley Road at Colne.